Innovations from

Mississippi

were
you'd ..... rr,h,..,hlu
COrnlnle: up Names
Rickenbacker, Loar, Beauchamp,
Les Paul and Floyd Rose would
to the tip of the tongue readily, no
into your head was
Peavey? The amp company? Well,
right. Peavey, the amp and guitar
One of America's largest
ufacturers
aware
guiding vi-
sion of its founder and owner Hardey
- essentially invented the way
solidbody guitars are made! But
Peavey. One the largest
PEAVEY
CitieS Lv\...aL".u.
way up the state
almost on the
bama border,
about a hundred
miles east of the
capital, Jackson.
That Peavey has
such a low profile
among guitar
players and collec-
. . .
tors IS an IronIc
to Right) 1978 Patent Applied For T-60, an early
situation because,
since 1 the
of the guitar which revolutionized modern sotl:db,odv
1982 T-25 Special, with a
real':?st!l,nea by Todd he the company.
company
pumping out guitars, many of excep-
tional quality, beauty and often quite
innovative design. Proudly made in the
U.S. of A. All, new or used, are a re-
markable value, which has been Hardey
idea from the very
And which may
a pleasantly lilting Southern drawl
paced like a salesman) who's by no
means shy about telling you what he
thinks language peppered with
plenty salt), "but it's not so strange
and
in this parr the countrf.
mixed with the 'white soul' of the
Irish and Scottish people who also lived
here and created country music. Jimmy
Rodgers, the Blue Yodeler, was born,
raised, died and buried in 1tleridian. All
this came together to make rock and
roll, right here. [Memphis, TN, sits
plumb on the northern border of Mis-
sissippi.] !vlaking guitars and amps
American music was born makes
perfect sense."
of Hartley person-
moment
slOn.
opened a music shop. He married my
mother in 1939, and I
country.
was born in 1941. I lit-
erally grew up in a mu-
SIC store.
"'W'hen I was about
14 years old I began
working full time in the
store. We sold instru-
"If I I Jtill W
f I

ments, radios, TVs, records. I handled
the records, ordering them for the kids.
Then around and '55, rock and roll
I was 15. I lived through the
'happy times.' I was physically
the country Djs that came in
rock. I was going to quit and
farewell speech all
the owner shove
music when I realized
came home and told his
he wanted to learn guitar. That
fine store had a teacher
Hardey could use one of the rental
In some ways, you
was the true start
Since no one told
to be a musician. He'd practice, build
amps and for He
UJUlLUIH:tC the money. When he an-
to his that he
played in five or six
bands, building
equipment as they
needed it. "A funny
thing about that," re-
members Peavey with
a sense of ironic
amusement. "Every

... mr 0 fair

time I finished building the band's
equipment, I was out and they'd find a
new guitar player. I'd show up for prac-
tice and there'd be this new guy who'd
blow me away with guitar
ing!" In 1964, a junior in college,
to use the $8,000 in the trust fund to
start an amp company, his father told
him he could "piss it away" any way he
wanted to. In 1965, Peavey Electron-
ics was born.
In those days, there were a ton of
amps on Sunn,
Kustom, Fender, Gibson, Standel.
recalls an early incident at a
show telling Bob of
Standel that he made amps down in
Mississippi. Crook gave him some fa-
think
As we
his own
strongly held opinions, so the wisdom
fell on
The Peavey credo
now
amplifiers,
including the
Vintage (circa
and Classic amps, however, this
is a vast subject which is beyond our
scope
tone circuit invented by
wood steel guitarist and amp
guru, Orville "Red" Rhoads.
The first public notice of this
appeared in a small, mc:onsPlcw::ms
near the back of the February 1978
Guitar
revenge
try Into
en-
was sort of a
WOJ
0 JILW

cantankerous
retaliation. As Peavey tells it, by the
and Gibson were 10s-
At that
guitars were better than his modern
answered
some thought paraphrase
paraphrase), "We made some
great guitars, but we also made some
pretty bad ones. Our problem was con-
sistency. We're much more consistent
nowadays." Even in the mid-
Peavey maintains, not that much
progress had been made. Gibson was,
at the time, the most automated, con-
sistent manufacturer then. For
....... "aF.',uJ'F. a guitar could be pro-
duced with consistent quality was his
goal, and the way he could "a
cent product at a fair
Chip Todd gets the nod
Hardey, who was looking for a
man, and Todd was brought to 1v1erid-
ian for an interview and subsequently
hired. He went back to Houston, sold
his shop and moved to Meridian. By
the way, the equipment Todd couldn't
sell bought and used. When
Todd left the company later,
gave it back to him.
At tlrst Todd worked drawing
on some commercial art training, as well
as his and guitar
-on
ing three or four times
a day with Hardey.
wanted a fairly
that was contoured.
hired assistants, Gerald Pew, who'd
worked on amp cabinets for
Bobby Low from Hattiesburg, MS, and
Charley Gressett. This was the team
that brought out the first Peavey gui-
tars and basses.
Inventing modern guitar
production
The idea from the beginning was to
use machines for efficiency and con-
Initially, Peavey thought they
solution was
LLL".aLLUJ, a subject that's mterested
(and not coincidentally Chip
a long rime. He had always
at how gun
were able to meet such tight
and get such a snug fit
metal and the wooden
gating this, he went to wOlod.wc,rkl:n.
shows, and discovered the
machine made in Germany,
ger copy lathe. These
at a time. Instead of one person
shaping one neck at a time, he
now had one machine operating pro-
ducing four at a time with much
efficiency and consistency.
For the T-60 bodies, Peavey purchased
an American-made numerical control carv-
machine, or profiler, a device which
becoming available at that time. Un-
a router, which only carves in an XY
the profiler carves in an XYZ do-
or in three dimensions, so it can do
a contoured guitar body. According to
were made by
in Rockford, IL, which is a con-
by the way. Otherwise the wood
wouldn't properly compensate for the
stress. The solution for this was
worked out on napkins by Todd and
Peavey one day, and then patented.
This was another Peavey innovation.
Also by the way, Peavey suggests with
pride that his necks "inspired" Leo
Fender to immitate his technique on the
early G&L guitars, a compliment of the
highest order. The
Peavey patent was
based on loading
the rod right down
the center of
bilaminate maple,
one
en-
and put this on a
pickup and tell me what you
" Peavey did, and, of
course, it worked just like
Rhoads said it would. Thus,
on the T-60 (and quite a few
other early Peavey guitars), when you
have the tone control at 10, the pick-
ups are humbucking with treble full
out. Roll it back to around 8 and they
are single coils. At around 6 or so, the
treble rolloffbegins as on a normal tone
pot.
Regarding wiring, Todd likes to point
out that, at the time, Gibson was wir-
ing pickups into the side post on pots,
which meant that when you were us-
ing both pickups and turned one pot
down, it affected the other pickup.
Peavey wired to the center post, which
meant one pot didn't affect the other,
ofTering more tonal flexibility.
A new way to fret necks
Another Peavey innovation was in
way it fretted At
were HLO',-,UUL"" one at a
WOJ m
II
was satisfactory.
chose Amron airplane paint, a
and was one of the first COmr)arlleS to
use this durable finish.
As an aside, Todd an amusmg
anecdote regarding finishes. At one
point they looked at a Swedish finish
which set in less than a minute. You
could finish and buff a guitar in
10 minutes worked out! The
was it was and the
humidity in !v1eridian was so high that
the finish began to set before the spray
hit the guitar, so it wouldn't take!
Under the covers
One final story about
sure en()up'h
Naming the babies
three guitars which
NAMM were ptototypes
Todd, T-30 and T-40,
yet and dubbed
1, CT-2 and CT-B Chip
Considerable time was spent
a name, but every time
would come up with
The case for cases
Cases, by the way, were at first
vacuum-formed and made in Florida,
as were those for Martins and Ovations.
However, Peavey wasn't satisfied with
quality, and changed over to blow-
molded cases. Martin was already do-
some of that at time, but Peavey
was quick to use new l'-,-llH'UIU'l;:. v.
Over the years, at two styles of
case can be found. One was the horsy
but injection molded brown
coffin with foam rubber
Classic stack endorsed
T-25 T-27 Limited and
heavy and lopsided but keep the guitar
well protected. Also available later was
a more common rectangular shape
made of a softer plastic with fabric in-
teriors, which is now the principal case.
Early numbers
Initially, the T-60 came with an
body a with black dot
markers. It had a Fender-style adjust-
able bridge unit, with back-loaded
strings. Pickups were chrome covered
'buckers with two black plastic ovals
poles. It had a black
dve, assigned by an aUlcornat:ed
ing machine.
Goodbye, Mr. Chip
Chip Todd left Peavey to
Fender's head of R&D in
though with the understanding
wouldn't
"",,..,,n,...,"" for workers ... Peavey is equally
complimentary about Todd's abilities.
Todd arrived at Fender just prior to
advent of Bill Schultz and a new
m;:magelme:nt, and he felt he never got
to make the contribution he'd wanted,
although he remembers with fondness
Freddy Tavares, who sang
at Todd's wedding. and his one lunch-
time meeting with Leo Fender and
Fullerton, who were involved
G&L then. At the time
Todd
reissue series at the time, and found that
every old Strat got had different
neck profiles and widths. Todd was told
that Fender never did intend to make
the V neck shape. That was the result
of employee problems. V necks were
almost all made on 1v1ondays. It seems
that many employees working on necks
would come in to work on Monday a
bit hung over, and, being tired, would
lean against the sanding machines, and
the V shaped neck!
and
more rounded
profiles were
made for rest
of For
reissues weren't faithful to the
originals, a part that is bec:aw;e
originals weren't faithful to themselves!]
A Gibson man
When tracing the subsequent devel-
opment ofPeavey guitars, there are two
main distinguishing characteristics
which mark the evolutionary stages:
body styles and pickups. Throughout
most of Peavey's existence, the
bilaminated neck design has been used.
Bolt-neck models also feature a tilt-neck
innovative (and patented) way.
IVfost other pICkUIJS
cutaways of the T-60 shape were deep-
ened and rounded a tad for better ac-
cess, but otherwise most of the T basses
and guitars were similar. There were
some changes in materials, finishes and
but the main new develop-
ment was the high-output Super Fer-
rite pickup which now appeared. The
Super Ferrite is visibly different from
previous humbucking pickup in
tealcun:d a blade of plas-
?viL
tars are the most
endearing of
Peaveys, but you
have to admit a
certain charm to
a guitar as
as the Razer, and,
indeed, it does
have a lot of stage
presence!
The Wham of the
Meridian 1\1an
The first whammies appeared circa
1983 and were traditional fulcrum vi-
bratos called the Octave Plus.
0
LIL[[fi[J.
of Stratmania. 1983 also saw the entry
of even more Strat-like shapes into the
line with the Patriot/Horizon/Mile-
stone guitars. These still featured the
typical Peavey electronics. The ever-
popular Fury and Foundation basses
were also introduced at this time, the
former being essentially a version of
Fender's P-Bass and the latter of the Jazz
bass.
Peavey's three single-coil Strat copy,
the Predator (another rumor to be put
to in 1985, along with
the first ceramic pickups.
also saw the introduction of
first doubleneck, the Hydra.
Peavey Rumor
MOSFET
are parncu-
and a good
shot of static
electricity
which anyone might pick up just walk-
ing across a room, can zap them and
destroy the part. Therefore, just as in
any other high tech manufacturing set-
ting, people working with computer
parts wear a coiled chord which con-
nects their to a grounding system
to equipment. Undoubt-
edly someone came on a factory tour,
saw the grounding wires and concluded
that employees were chained to their
benches! Nfy
guess IS
rumor
Flight of the Falcon
nitely more lIn'cr'llp
Predator. These came in
for fIrst active pickup veI'SlO'tU.
Falcons are serious
quality guitars, with a solid feel
pable of delivering all the
tones one could desire.
Nitro-power
The very popular Nitro guitar
buted in 1987, as did the {'
triangular headstock. This
in various pickup configuration
sentially went head-to-head
tars like Kramer's Beretta.
things like materials, pickups,
whammies (or not), headstocks,
radiuses, and subtleties like one
or two scallops on cutawavs.
Back to the roots
tion, including, for example, a Falcon
with internal sound chambers and a
flamed maple top.
contemporary
balanced
Peavey players
ous products over the years in-
cludes Steve Wariner, Joe Walsh, l\1ario
Cipollina
d

Leonard (Ricky Van Shelton), Will Lee
Randy Coven, Kip Winger,
Don Was, Larry Junstrom Special),
Leland Sklar, Albert Mark Farner,
Lanny Cordola, Jody Davis, Rex
Carrol!. and Eddie Van Halen.
Not a shoddy of stars if you
me!
Peavey basses have always been more
popular than the guitars, although the
guitars the older
shown considerable popularity among
country players.
Peavey amps have enjoyed even more
popularity as well, even though
Marshalls and Boogies are more fash-
Van
5150 amp has done
that
Fighting the good
fight
are fighting the
good fight," concludes
Hardey Peavey, "instead of going to
Mexico or India or wherever you get
the lowest price, we keep making all of
our guitars right her in the United
States. We only sell to 1300 music deal-
ers across the country. We don't sell
mail-order, because we're into customer
satisfaction. That means you have to
see the guitar, try it out with a sales-
man at a dealer. We're trying to do right
musicians. Most are mu-
sicians, or wanna-bes. trying to
make playing affordable, building on
our own expertise. Other companies
think I'm crazy, but I'm enjoying what
I'm doing. Happiness is never having
guitars, especially in the
the line, speak for
spectacular woods, fancy
cendy, especially on the
guitars represent renaaI'KalLJIC
variety and quality for the
and Hardey Peavey's cOlrItrlDllt1(mS
the music industry can
He rAr'p'\f,"r Cl:larlgea
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